Everyone should stay in their homes or public shelters until emergency services declared it safe to leave, she said.
“We will see conditions worsen further and it will be worsening quickly,” she said on Saturday afternoon.
Sheets of rain sluice along The Esplanade in Darwin on Saturday as Cyclone Fina approaches. Source: AAP / Lloyd Jones
“So as we approach this evening and the sun goes down, conditions are going to deteriorate significantly.”
Gamble said conditions would ease considerably from Sunday morning.
Property damage expected
But Darwin could still experience winds of up to 120km/h.
“But if it wobbles a little bit further south this afternoon, we could see more impacts in Darwin.”
As the wind and the rain ramped up in Darwin, most businesses were closed, including major supermarkets. Source: SBS News / Josh van Staden
Alice Williams, the office co-ordinator for the Tiwi Islands Regional Council at Milikapiti, near the most northerly reach of the territory, told AAP the winds were starting to pick up and some people were a “little bit anxious”.
People had moved to public shelters in the council office and primary school on Friday evening, while others chose to stay at homes deemed safe, Williams said.
‘Your fellow Australians are with you’
“What I would say to Northern Territory communities right now is your fellow Australians are with you,” she told reporters in Canberra.
